‘Historic’ tirade undercut some compelling points.

On Sept, 19, a pro-se inventor filed a Response to Office Action that will go down in United States Patent and Trademark Office history—along with the “Are You Drunk?” response filed several years ago.

The Remarks section of the response starts much as you might expect but quickly gets confrontational. The inventor did not like being told that his claims would violate the laws of physics, which
led to a two-page discussion about the ambiguity of the term. Interestingly, the inventor took issue with something that would have been a compelling argument. Apparently, if the inventor
is correct, there is an International Search Authority opinion that the claims cover an industrial application. The inventor wanted to know how and why an Alice rejection could be given if
that is the case. (The landmark Alice v. CLS Bank Supreme Court ruling in 2014 said that certain claims were invalid because they were drawn to an abstract idea.)

The inventor asked the examiner to explain why there was total disagreement with the ISA and closed with this thought: “Or is it the Examiner did not bother reading said opinion?”

This may seem like a harsh question, but it also may have been compelling had the inventor not ultimately gone off the rails. Though the overwhelming majority of examiners at the patent
office take their jobs very seriously, at times it can feel like they are either not paying attention, not reading or just pushing garbage out the door of the office.

What this inventor did is not the solution. There are avenues to pursue at the office when a patent examiner may be ignoring the rules and law, and all kinds of strategies to maneuver applications
around inside the office to more friendly examiners in art units who actually work for the Patent Granting Authority. Telling off the examiner as if you are arguing with a New York taxi driver who just side-swiped you is not a winning strategy.

R-rated remarks

Whatever one might think of patent examination quality, there is no call for using foul language to berate examiners in a Response to Office Action, as in these remarks:

“You and your f******, a****** boss cost me thousands of dollars in unnecessary legal costs due to your gross negligence, willful misconduct, failure to obey the law and failure to follow USPTO reviewer’s guidelines, which lead (sic) to me having to end any legal support in fighting against you pieces of s*** as well as putting me in a gigantic finance hole that has taken me two and one-half years to dig out from. I am hereby demanding the following be carried out immediately whether you f****** like it or not dip s****!

a. You and your (f/a) boss are to recuse yourself from the review of this application immediately.
b. Given the above remarks, which show you and your (f/a) boss to be incompetent, incapable, have zero character or integrity, and are fraudsters, you and your (f/s***hole) boss are to immediately issue a Notice of Allowance on patent application 13/835,937.
c. You and your (f/a) boss are to immediately provide me with those states you qualified for the bar, so I can move to have your law license revoked and any other retribution I deem necessary!
d. A grievance and complaint will be filed with the USPTO Commissioner’s Office demanding you and your (f/a) boss be terminated, forfeit any and all pensions and benefits as well as
claw back 5 years of your salary.
e. Under no circumstances should you and your (f/a) boss contact me, I will considerate it a threat against my person and an act of harassment, which will result in the notification of appropriate
authorities.
f. I will not address the remaining claim rejections until you and your (f/a) boss are removed from reviewing or having anything to do, in any way, shape or form with this application.”

Some patent examiners can and do inspire this level of hatred. Whatever the wrong perpetrated by the examiner ceases to matter, however, when a response like this is filed. No one who could have helped will lift a finger, and this inventor is finished at the office.

Interestingly, the application cited by the inventor—13/835,937 —is not the application where this response was filed. This response was filed in Application No. 14/390,168. Application No. 13/835,937 was to the same inventor, but that case was abandoned on April 2, 2015, for failure to timely respond to a Final Rejection.

(If you look for this response, you will not find it in Public PAIR. It was removed shortly after its posting. The patent office has the authority to refuse entry of filings that are disparaging, which this one obviously is.)